Ae'Lah (Species)

A race of tall, thin, bipedal creatures hailing from a planet of the same name, the Ae'Lah people are commonly referred to as "Wyverns" by the galactic community due to their appearance. Standing between 6 and a half and nearly 9 feet tall, and featuring a slender, sometimes almost starved appearance, they tower over many other discovered sentient species in height. The name wyvern comes from their arms, which feature a fine membrane that runs from the wrist to the side of their waist in a wing like fashion, allowing them to glide freely in the air on their low gravity homeworld. they have three long, slight fingers with an opposable thumb, as well as padded, three toed digitigrade feet. Both their hands and feet feature retractable claws and talons for self defense.

Culture

The culture of their people is an extremely naturalistic and group oriented affair, revolving around the respect of life and nature in all of its forms. Their people hold a very firm belief that every living object encountered across the solar system, from simple plants to the mightiest predator, are individual forces of life and soul that should be treated with the utmost of care and respect. To destroy a living thing, no matter what it may be, for meaningless and trivial reasons is viewed negatively by their society, and in extreme cases is nothing short of criminal. As a result much of their technology is incorporated into this social standard of preserving and respecting life and works alongside their natural environment with minimal impact to the world around them. Most of their beliefs and artistic tendencies are expressed through the artforms of song and dance, both of which play an integral role in their society. Many different dances are practiced and songs rehearsed for a multitude of ceremonies and celebrations, such as coming of age, marriage, and a yearly festival to celebrate the cycle of life starting anew as the year draws to a close. Marriage on their world is held in the utmost regard, as their entire society revolves around working together as a whole, and as such finding a life partner is seen as a sign of finding someone you're willing to always work together with, no matter what may come to pass. Married couples are ceremonially bound to a small red flower found on their homeworld that will only bloom once it is bound to a couple, signifying that they are now spiritually bound as one for the rest of their lives. The flower will not wilt until both of them have passed, and is placed in their home as a marital adornment. unbloomed seedlings of this flower are commonly used in a practice somewhat similarly to engagement rings, presenting it to the one they wish to marry. Once married, they will never undergo this ceremony again with any other partner, even after one of them passes on.

Society

Their social life is very in depth and vocal, With interaction with others being a constant throughout nearly the entirety of their day. A very social species by nature, talking, trading, and generally enjoying the company of nearly everyone around them is commonplace. As such they are very inclined to talking and mingling with other races with almost no transitional difficulties, at least on their part. As such, they do not take to being alone very well. From birth, they are taught to respect all living things, and that each living thing has it's own outlook on the world and the lives around them that should be respected and upheld with the utmost care. Their education encourages and nurtures the cooperation of groups and small teams almost exclusively, teaching the group as a whole, rather than a mass of individuals. This generally leads to them being fairly vulnerable on their own. It is very rare for their people to have a private place to bathe, and is widely accepted in their society and culture to be perfectly normal to have places such as public bath houses, as many of them also serve as places of public meeting. These places generally tend to be unisex, as they do not tend to be attracted to another in this manner, but rather by the patterns, and profile prevalent in their wings. As such, it's considered very offensive to stare at a strangers wings in public.